


A Miniature War Thesis

by flecksofpoppy



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 07:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few of the pilots have a short conversation about religion, reality, and their reasons for fighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Miniature War Thesis

**Author's Note:**

> Completed... 2001??

_He folds in half like a paper napkin under someone's thumb, a jack knife of spine and tissue tears through all of it and I know he's dead. His body is a drooping stem of broken life, blood in spatters and not in streams, black and not red. This is real. This is the end I see. In my head, they all die eventually._

"What's real?"

"Reality is not a matter of perception," he drew closer to the window, not touching its glass but looking as if he might just to see if he could put his fingers through it. The invisible divider between him and the outside world didn't seem real as he stood there, speaking about the exact opposite of that which his mind was thinking.

"It's not?" Duo asked from a ratty easy chair in the corner, his legs stretched out over the side of its arm. "I think it is. C'mon Heero, you don't actually think that absolutely everything has to be logical, do you?"

"Of course it is," Heero replied, still turned towards the outside. He didn't answer the other pilot's question so much as refute it without argument, as if so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn't have the capacity to consider their conversation at hand.

Duo sighed. "Why did we start talking about this again?"

"You asked if Heero was religious," Trowa supplied from where he sat at the table in the center of the room, screw driver in one hand and miscellaneous part in the other. He didn't look up, and Heero didn't look back, leaving Duo to stare between the two of them as if they were both crazy.

"No," he corrected self righteously, "I asked what Heero thought of religion."

"All people are weak," Heero's voice broke in, "and religion," he stopped, and then pointed at Duo, "and religion, your religion, reminds people that they are weak, but not alone."

"Religion is more than a defense coping mechanism."

"Maybe," he shrugged, finally facing the other two pilots and stared down at his fraying sneakers, "but some people can accept their solitude."

"Whatever," Duo rolled his eyes, missing Heero's strange demeanor altogether and mistaking the uncharacteristic melancholy in his voice for the usual dismissal of their brief conversations. "I'm going to bed. See you guys tomorrow, I'm beat."

"Don't forget the mission parameters," Heero said absentmindedly, picking up a stack of blueprints he had been studying earlier.

"Yeah, yeah," he flicked his hand at Heero in dismissal.

"What was that about?" Trowa asked after Duo had left, setting down his implements and looking up at Heero.

"He's thinking about his own mortality," Heero answered without pause, "and he wants someone else to think about it too."

"For someone who accepts their solitude," Trowa commented dryly, "you certainly sound like you have human nature all figured out."

"I don't need to figure out human nature to understand human behavior," he shrugged, "you do it too."

Trowa shook his head, his sudden interest in the previous conversation immediately subdued. "I predict it, but I can't understand it. I don't know how anyone can. Who knows? Maybe Duo's God does exist."

"Maybe," Heero echoed uncertainly, glancing back out the window at the dark dry world. The summer heat wrapped them in its stifling blanket, and he thought of hell. He didn't share his thoughts this time.

"Maybe there is some sort of... system," Trowa continued, as if unaware the other boy was present. His voice held the timbre of someone speaking completely unto himself. "Of weights and measures, but for sin and good."

"Sin is another word for moral," Heero shrugged, "and morals don't count for a lot in war."

"Morals don't count for a lot anywhere," Trowa agreed, "except in the mind of Treize Khushrenada."

The Wing pilot snorted. "His morals are outdated and inefficient."

"Are they?" Trowa countered curiously. "So then, what are we fighting for?"

He didn't reply for a moment, taking a moment to sit down in front of Trowa and pick up a few of the loose parts. His fingers carefully screwed two pieces together, and he reached for the screw driver that had been recently discarded.

"It doesn't matter that we don't know," he eventually replied, re-assembling the detonator that Trowa had been fixing, "all that matters is that we keep on fighting."

"All in the name of fighting for fighting," Trowa sounded bemused, "a reason that fits with all my other reasons."

"What are your reasons?"

"Not God," he grimaced. Heero offered a small smirk in his direction, nodding slightly.

"Not like Duo?" he raised a brow, "although he thinks he is a God, so never mind."

"I don't have any reasons apart from I was in the right place at the right time." Trowa shrugged, watching Heero carefully.

Heero just laughed a little, shaking his head, though it was a hollow, foreign sound emerging from his mouth. "Same here."

"Two vagabonds," Trowa commented idly.

"A God," Heero added, tossing his head towards Duo's door.

"A judge and jury."

"And an empath."

They just stared at each other. "Are we ever going to win?"

After a small stretch of silence, Heero shrugged and handed the reassembled detonator back to Trowa.

"Win what?"


End file.
